- Kiki, Noire et Blanche
Sheet: 7 × 9 3/8 in. (17.8 × 23.8 cm)
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First published in Vogue Paris on May 1, 1926, Man Ray’s iconic portrait of Kiki de Montparnasse posed with a Baule mask from the Ivory Coast represented an infusion of Surrealist imagery into one of the preeminent fashion magazines of the era. Beautiful and enigmatic, Man Ray’s composition draws on the formal interplay of tonal difference and shadow, while alluding to the Surrealist’s interest in the human unconscious. During the interwar years, African masks and ceremonial objects—many produced as export objects—became not only props and visual referents to European Modernists but increasingly found their way into the mainstream.
ProvenanceAtelier Man Ray, Paris; [Alain Paviot, Paris]; [Galerie Octant, Paris]; purchased by Manfred Heiting, April 11, 1987; purchased by MFAH, 2002.
Exhibition History"Exposition Internationale de la Photographie," Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1932.
"Man Ray," KunsthausWien, Vienna, 1996.
"Man Ray, La Photographue à l'Envers," Centre Georges Pompideau, Paris, 1998.
"Portraits from the Manfred Heiting Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 28–May 2, 2005.
"Object & Image: Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens," The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., October 10, 2009–January 10, 2010; University of Virginia Art Musuem, Charlottesville, August 7–October 10, 2010; Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, October 3, 2010–January 31, 2011.
"Man Ray's Photography in the Surrealist's Paris," Max Ernst Museum, Brühl, Germany, September 15–December 8, 2013.
"The Jazz Age: Art and Decoration in 1920s America," Cleveland Museum of Art, September 30, 2017–January 14, 2018.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
In pencil along right edge: K.K.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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